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We have been home in Calgary for a couple of days now, well home but still homeless! We don’t get possession of our own house until end of May, but we have a roof over our heads, and a soft bed to sleep in thanks to my lovely daughter. It seems there are many things to get organized, like a phone, cloths from the storage locker, and seeing all of our friends.

This image was taken during our visit to Portimao Portugal, almost one year ago, March 9th 2014 to be exact. It was the beginning of our epic journey through Europe.

We have only had sporadic internet service over the last 2 weeks, it has been a real holiday from photography and blogging! Now it is time to get back into the routine. Tuesday I am going to be dedicating to black and white, or monochrome images, and contribute to Monochrome Madness hosted by Leanne Cole, she has been hosting this weekly blog for 51 weeks now.

It has been raining for the last two days and when it isn’t raining there is a misty fog that hangs in the air. We expected the weather to be less than ideal, after all it is winter here, so we were prepared with rain coats, hats and umbrellas. Amsterdam is still a beautiful city.

Venice Italy, with any small and large canals, bridges and alleyways, you can walk around the city or you can take a boat. I don’t recall seeing any bicycles, too many bridges to carry the bike over to make it worth the ride I guess. It seems every bridge we walked over we would see a gondola full of people. When the light is just right the reflections of the buildings fill the canal. Some canals were so small, and the corners so tight I wondered how the gondola would make the turn, but they always managed. With the reflection of the buildings in the canal water, it looks as if the gondola has nowhere to go.

Vancouver is on the list of favourite places to visit, it isn’t just the great skyline and photo opportunities, but when we are in the city there is family and friends to spend time with. Even the dullest most boring places are made better with friends and family. Here is an image taken just a couple of weeks ago. Fog and mist hanging in the air, made for still water and great reflections.

I have been following Visual Venturing written by Stacey Fisher for quite sometime, she features an “After-Before Friday” blog. The posts provide an opportunity for photographers (amateur and seasoned, alike) to share their photos, and if they wish, their post-processing decisions. The photos provide the post-processing descriptions, the “how.” The goal is to enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at others’ work while picking up helpful ideas along the way that each of us can use as we work with our own photos.

This photo and blog post has been submitted to the forum, the first time I have submitted to the “after-before friday” There are many ways to process an image, each photographer has their own ideas, the tools I use and list below work for me. I am hoping to continue to learn from the other photographer and I am excited to be on of the contributors this week!

here is the raw/unprocessed image that I started with

Vancouver Coal Harbour; copyright jmeyersforeman

taking the image into Nik Colour Effects 4 and some of the steps that were required to make the final image.

I added a Levels & Curve layer to the lower 1/2 of the image; using control points we are able to add or subtract adjustments to specific areas of the image. I then added a Cross Processing C-41-E6-C04 layer again to the lower 2/3’s of the image. I did not want the colour process to change the colour of the sky, but to the buildings and water. I then added a Classical Soft Focus layer to the image to enhance the softness to the foggy day. If you look closely to the last image I added a control point to the tall building to bring back some of the detail. Bringing the image back into Lightroom I increased the exposure slightly to brighten the sky.

There are times when I know very specifically the image I want to create when I click the shutter, other times I appreciate the post processing tools that I have at my disposal, and use them to “find” the image that works. In this case I knew the image I wanted to create, knowing and working with the post processing tools allowed me to create the final image in a relatively short period of time.

I hope you will hop over to Visual Venturing and check out the other photographers work.

Early one morning Okanagan Lake, near Kelowna British Columbia; swimmers head to the lake for their early morning swim. I loved the idea of the swimmer in a black wet suit as he walked into the water, keeping the swimmer in strong contrast while the detail in the water and hazy sky, as well as the buoys and other swimmers in the water kept soft.

I did submit the photo to Leanne Cole’s Monochrome Madness, a weekly forum for photographers working with monochrome images. The blog has introduced me a whole bunch of new photographers, and heightened my awareness for monochrome images. I have been inspired and encouraged to experiment with monochrome images past the basic black and white adjustment layer in Photoshop to more selective adjustments that are particular and necessary to achieve the desired result, and enhance the magic of storytelling with photography. Each of the photographers who submit to the forum are working on their storytelling. I would like to encourage you to check out Leanne’s blog and the other photographer who submit their images.

Some of the beautiful views in the Alberta Rocky Mountains. We have travelled to Vancouver using the secondary highways, seeing some amazing scenery, and far less traffic than if we had travelled the Trans-Canada Highway. When not driving we have spent a lot of time visiting friends and family. So far we are having a great trip .

We have been in Calgary for a few days, visiting with friends and family, but I wanted to share a few more images of our time in cottage country, Ontario.

Growing up in Saskatchewan we as a family did not head to the lake for weekends or holidays, and while I love to sit beside the water, and it doesn’t matter if it is a lake, seaside or ocean or even a pool, I am not to likely to get much more than my toes wet! Sitting up at the end of the dock with a cup of coffee or glass of wine, feet dangling in the water is wonderfully relaxing. The view so peaceful, the air so fresh, and the world so quiet I can understand why so many people are drawn to cottage country.

My cousin’s in England live in the area of Reading, and while we were out touring the countryside visiting several little towns and enjoying the sites we crossed the River Thames several times. We found several pretty views, as we crossed bridges and walked in the parks. It seems like it would be a lovely peaceful way to spend a couple of weeks during the lazy days of summer, provided the weather was sunny.

I haven’t been doing a lot of black and white images lately, but I wanted to participate in Leanne Cole‘s a weekly blog post of Monochrome Madness. Photographers from around the world submit their favourite monochrome image for the week. I recommend you head over to her site if you are interested in seeing more monochrome images.

For this image I used Nik Color Efex Pro 4, Infrared black and white to process the image. I like using the Nik Software, there is a lot of presets, but each preset has many ways to customize the affect to one that best suits the photograph. For this image I was able to adjust the highlight and shadow sliders, preserving detail in the image that had been eliminated with the original present and I was able to achieve that dreamy feel of a quiet afternoon landscape.